Focus strays on Harding

Published 6:19 pm, Friday, February 28, 2014

Boy, if any part of the city of Bridgeport deserves the shot in the arm of a new, beautiful high school complex, it would be the city's East End and East Side.

In a city of many underserved neighborhoods, those are high on the list.

The high school that serves them, Harding High School, at 1734 Central Avenue, is 89 years old. It is decrepit.

The proposal, of course, is to build a spanking new $78 million Harding High School for 800 students on 17 acres of the land once occupied by the landmark General Electric complex on Boston Avenue, a stone's throw from the school's current site.

There should be serious discussion about the safety of using a brownfield -- a contaminated property -- as the location for a school. And those discussions are afoot.

More importantly, there needs to be action to make sure the property is remediated, restored through a variety of techniques including removing, burying and capping contaminated pockets.

General Electric is going to pay for the remediation and the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection is going to say yea or nay on the plan, is going to oversee the work as it progresses and will certify -- or not -- that the work has been done and the site has been raised to what is considered a "residential" standard, meaning the location is considered safe not only for a school, but safe for people to live on permanently.

A brownfield such as the GE site can be cleaned up to the point that it could host, say, a surgical center or a day care center.

So said Robert Bell, assistant director in the DEEP's remediation division, in a recent interview.

While GE has not yet submitted the written remediation plan to the DEEP, Bell said he's been in regular contact with the company as the planning has developed and said he's confident the plan is going to achieve the goal of residential cleanliness.

One of the unfortunate aspects of the plan to build this new school is the politics of the situation.

The politics shot off like a rocket without fins in July 2012 when Mayor Bill Finch staged a coup that dissolved the Bridgeport Board of Education and ushered in a state-appointed board and the arrival of Schools Supt. Paul Vallas, for whatever talents he brought to the table, arguably the most divisive character to appear on the city's political scene in decades. I've seen some truly ugly turns over the decades, but never a guy who developed enemies as quickly as Vallas.

Finch's move, unfortunately, is going to reverberate in the city for years.

Without citing chapter and verse, the animosities -- both personal and organizational -- that flared as the rocket ricocheted around the city are as fresh today as they were then.

Even though there's been a complete turnaround in the power structure of the school board -- the minority group that suffered one indignity after another at the hand of the Finch majority is now in charge -- the air remains thick with mistrust. It's not unearned, but someone's got to step up and say it's time for a new day, and not a time for settling scores and seizing power. All of this is doing nothing to bring clarity to the situation surrounding Harding High School.

Questions about the land have to be answered. And there's a process for getting that done.

There's a discouraging undercurrent, though, to some of the recent proceedings regarding the school. And that is that some people appear to be against the Harding proposal simply because the fingerprints of Paul Vallas and Bill Finch are on it.

If Paul Vallas were to suddenly come out and condemn this plan, construction would start before the thaw.

Once again, and assign the blame wherever'd you like, considerations othrer than what might be best for the students at Harding seem to be in the foreground.

Through the administrations of former Mayors Joe Ganim and John Fabrizi, the city has been trying to get a new Harding High School built.

The opportunity now is a good one. If a knowledgeable environmental official says "You know what, we're just not going to be able to get this place clean," then it should be dead. Short of that, stopping this project serves no one.